Where is the overview of all work items (across all boards)

Question

When, in Azure Devops, opening the Boards > Backlog page there is no possibility to have an overview of all work items accross all of the teams.

You see "All backlogs", but they are divided into the teams.

I want to see an overview of all work items for all these teams.

Is this possible?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 09 '19 at 10:34

0

You can just create a simple query:

Then you can format it as a flat list or tree.

But keep in mind that the limit for query results is 20000 items.

answered Jul 09 '19 at 10:34

m.zygmunt

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Thanks, but can you select the query to be displayed on the "backlog page". Our customer wants to see all the workitems on the backlog page. And he doesn't want to open the query page (there are already a lot of queries there) – saibot Jul 09 '19 at 11:15
As an option: maybe it will be enough for you to create a dashboard with a result of a query as a [widget](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/report/dashboards/widget-catalog?view=azure-devops#query-results)? It works fine and I think that actually customized dashboard is a quite good way for presenting a project to the customer. – m.zygmunt Jul 09 '19 at 11:57
That's a good idea. But they want to see the work items as a list directly, so they can select, edit and reorder all of the items at once – saibot Jul 09 '19 at 17:58

Sнаđошƒаӽ · Answer 2 · 2019-10-08T10:48:16.173

I want to see an overview of all work items for all these teams.

You can't do that using any of the regular azure boards (kanban board and sprint board).

The only way (well, the only way known to me) to do that is with Queries (Boards -> Queries). To see work items across projects, remember to check the Query across projects checkbox.

At your disposal you have myriads of fields that you can use to filter your results as well. Use them to fine tune your query result if you want. Last but not least, use Column options to specify which columns to show in your result. Since you want work items across projects, you may want to be able to see which project an item belongs to without opening the item. To do that, include the column Area path from Column options dialog. I use the following columns, and sort by ID descending.

Finally save the query.

Now go to Dashboard, click the Edit button, and add the Query Results widget. Configure that widget to use the query you just created. Note that by default, the column Area Path is not included in the Selected columns list on the right, but you have to include it yourself from the Available columns list on the left. Move columns up/down as you see fit.

Click Done editing when you are done. Through that widget you can edit the work items by clicking on the Title of each work item, which will open the item in a modal. You cannot reorder items (I suppose to set priority) on this widget itself, but hey, setting priority is just a few clicks away, so not a big deal. If you like, you can sort the query result using Priority, and after updating priority you should click Refresh to see the updated result.

Hope that helps!

Not being able to see all work item types on the board is a huge oversight, is it not? — Ben, Apr 20 '23 at 14:30

Where is the overview of all work items (across all boards)

2 Answers2